The Accies College Cup (Race 5) – Biella Rugby, i nostri più cari amici italiani!
Over the course of our rich history, we have been blessed with many pieces of luck and sitting amongst those most treasured is a chance meeting with Vittorio Musso in Shanghai Airport in the early days of the Six Nations. Vittorio was the president of Biella Rugby and harboured an ambition of bringing his team to Edinburgh. He would swiftly be put in touch with John Evans, Vincent O’Donoghue and David Parker and a visit to Raeburn Place was arranged.
With the seeds of a long friendship planted, the Club would travel to Biella, a small city in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy, in 2004 with a tour party of varying playing and drinking abilities. No one had heard of Biella Rugby, but it quickly became apparent that this would be a trip to remember as we would receive a mayoral welcome and be piped down the main street of Biella! We would pass many cafe and bar windows and doors adorned with “Welcome Edinburgh Accies!” signs and receive complimentary drinks when entering.
We would also watch the Under-21s match between Scotland and Italy, which had been moved to Biella by the Italian authorities to coincide with Accies, the oldest rugby club in Scotland, being in town. Future player and coach Iain Berthinussen would line up for Scotland that evening and the tour party were honoured guests at the Mayoral Dinner afterwards.
The tour would eventually require some rugby to be played by Accies and we would fit this in on the morning of the full Scotland vs Italy game. Fuelled by grappa and vino from the previous evening, and in the shadow of the sublime Biellese Alps, we would enjoy a well-spirited game with our hosts before departing to watch the Six Nations in the clubhouse. Scotland would lose that day but the drink would flow and lots of friendships were formed. In the early hours, some un-named Accies would stretch the warm welcome we had be received to the fullest but, fortunately, Vittorio would display the extent of his influence to convince the Carbinieri that “I ragazzi saranno ragazzi”.
The more serious offense however was committed by a local vineyard. After George Menzies had completed a tour and bought some wine to present to the Biella boys in their clubhouse. Many of the Biella boys also brought wine so they had a wine taster on duty (you would surely expect nothing less), who promptly rejected the wine and poured it down the sink! As it transpired, the vineyard thought he was offloading some duff wine to go straight back to Scotland. A crime which Vittorio could not let slide so easily.
Accies would return to Biella once more and we would maintain our links with Biella as Vittorio joined us in 2008 at the 150th Anniversary match against the Barbarians and the BATs and Academy teams would also visit Biella in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Biella Rugby has gone through an amazing metamorphosis since our first meeting with the addition of a 4G pitch, stand, new clubhouse and the club reaching Serie A of the Italian league.
The marvellous hospitality and camaraderie from these tours will be hard to match and Biella would love to welcome the Accies back anytime – there is a standing invitation that we hope to take up in future.
We would also like to congratulate Vittorio Musso who has recently been elected on to the board of Italian Rugby. All the best Vittorio!
NOTE: This article was originally posted our old website on 2nd May 2021, but was migrated to this website as part of go-live in May 2021.